Epidemics

News about Epidemics, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 20, 2015

India's Health Ministry desperately tries to cope with influenza outbreak that has affected thousands and killed 700 since January; World Health Organization has identified strain as H1N1 seasonal flu, descendent of swine flu. MORE

Feb. 10, 2015

Op-Ed article by Dr Paul A Offit condemns parents who do not vaccinate their children; describes 1991 measles epidemic in Philadelphia, largely caused by Christians who believed Jesus would heal their children and not doctors, belief that eventually led to children's deaths; holds in view of current epidemic of measles, politicians should consider abolishing not only philosophical exemptions to vaccination, but religious exemptions as well. MORE

Jan. 31, 2015

Article in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report finds that mysterious and deadly annual illness in northern India may be caused by toxin in litchi fruit; epidemic, which occurs just as fruit ripens, causes seizures, coma and death in thousands of children each year. MORE

Jan. 26, 2015

World Health Organization, responding to criticism of slow and ineffective action on Ebola epidemic, backs changes to fortify its emergency response to outbreaks and other health crises. MORE

Dec. 30, 2014

Ebola epidemic in Africa, which has caused 7,800 deaths since it began, appeared to be drawing to close in spring of 2014 and may have been brought to halt then, were it not for series of response missteps and complicating factors; doctors and experts failed to adequately track disease and to appreciate that 2014 outbreak would differ from previous strains in catastrophic ways; in addition, lack of infrastructure and resources, local distrust of government and movement of tribal people across borders contributed to disease's spread. MORE

Nov. 11, 2014

Dr Lawrence K Altman The Doctor's World column observes Ebola epidemic and HIV epidemic of early 1980s have prompted eerily similar reactions from health officials and public, raising crucial questions about why the world remains persistently unprepared to react to the sudden emergence of viral threats. MORE

Nov. 4, 2014

Host of obstacles stand in way of health care workers and others needed to travel to West Africa to help fight Ebola; foremost among problems is lack of central agency in charge of effort, while misinformation and fear are also complicating factors. MORE

Nov. 3, 2014

In the case of Ebola, caretaking is a job of the highest risk, and doctors and nurses are innately terrible at even the basics of infection control. MORE

Nov. 1, 2014

Family of 7-year-old Ikeoluwa Opayemi files lawsuit against Meadowside Elementary School in Milford, Conn, after Opayemi was barred from class for 21 days following a trip to Nigeria. MORE

Oct. 29, 2014

Ebola treatment centers in Liberia are seeing fewer patients and more empty beds, raising question of whether disease is abating or whether it continues to rage out of public eye; experts, unable to explain why numbers of patients, and percentage of people testing positive for disease are dropping, say it is too early to celebrate; there is near universal hesitance to call outbreak under control. MORE

Oct. 28, 2014

Three days of apparent reversals on Ebola and lack of clear standards from both New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo and New Jersey Gov Chris Christie over their quarantine policy leave both critics and allies questioning whether the policy was fully worked out before taking effect. MORE

Oct. 28, 2014

Political Memo; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose administration is overseeing care of Ebola patient Dr Craig Spencer, has reined in his often-florid speaking style to stress in plain words the difficulty of transmitting the Ebola virus; his demeanor is in stark contrast to what many viewed as a jumbled performance from Gov Andrew M Cuomo, whose response has drawn criticism for his policy shifts and off-key remarks. MORE

Oct. 28, 2014

New York City calls on workers for Bio Recovery Corporation, which helped the city during the anthrax scare in 2001, to sterilize the Harlem apartment of Dr Craig Spencer, city’s first Ebola patient; crew also scrubbed down the Brooklyn bowling alley Spencer had visited. MORE

Oct. 27, 2014

Public health and legal experts say that New York and New Jersey's mandatory quarantine of medical workers returning from Ebola-afflicted areas of West Africa is virtually without precedent in nation's modern history; similar, if less stringent, policies in Florida, Illinois and Connecticut have put states into unfamiliar legal and medical territory; analysis of the history of American quarantines and legal powers related to them described. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Vast majority of medical professionals who have been fighting Ebola in West Africa say tougher restrictions, like those adopted by New York and New Jersey, could cripple volunteers' efforts at the front lines of the epidemic; federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sets baseline for recommendation standards on Ebola, but state and local officials have prerogative to tighten the regimen as they see fit. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo unexpectedly shifts his policy on Ebola outbreak, opening up a public rift with fellow Democrat New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; Cuomo, after offering soothing words to worried New Yorkers with de Blasio at Bellevue Hospital Center, joins Republican New Jersey Gov Chris Christie, and says medical personnel returning to New York after treating Ebola patients in West Africa will be automatically subject to 21-day quarantine. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Friends and former classmates of Dr Craig Spencer, first New Yorker to test positive for Ebola virus, describe him as driven and with unshakable belief in helping others no matter the consequences; they are outraged by comments made by New York Gov Andrew M Cuomo suggesting that Spencer put people at risk by not behaving as if under quarantine. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Mali reports that 2-year-old girl who traveled from Guinea to Mali while showing symptoms of Ebola has died; dozens of contacts are being traced, but it is unlikely that everybody who encountered the child on public transportation will be identified. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Nina Pham, first nurse who became infected with Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, makes full recovery and travels to White House for meeting with Pres Obama. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Public health authorities say they hope to begin trials of Ebola vaccines in West Africa as early as December 2014 and could know around April 2015 whether they were effective, clearing the way for possible mass inoculations to stem the epidemic. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Isolation ward at Bellevue Hospital Center, which has long been on the front line of global health crises, is being used to treat New York's first Ebola patient Dr Craig Spencer; hospital has policy that no employees will be forced to work with a patient with the disease against their wishes, and so far none of the workers on the unit have opted out. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Locations in New York City where Dr Craig Spencer, who has contracted the Ebola virus, traveled before his hospitalization are being sanitized, while city officials work to restore order. MORE

Oct. 25, 2014

Op-Ed article by author and television host Steven Johnson observes increasing speed with which information about disease epidemics can spread via technology; compares 1854 London cholera outbreak, in which disease spread rapidly but information leaked slowly, to Ebola outbreak in which information has circulated quickly; contends high-speed dissemination of information contributes both to public safety and public anxiety. MORE

Oct. 24, 2014

Federal officials and pharmaceutical companies are planning to start two large clinical trials of Ebola vaccines in West African countries devastated by the outbreak; trials will run separately, one in Liberia, the other in Sierra Leone, and involve different designs to ensure at least one produces usable information. MORE

Oct. 24, 2014

Toddler from Mali tests positive for Ebola virus and is put in isolation; Mali is the sixth West African country to confirm Ebola case, indicating again the disease's barely controlled spread across porous regional borders. MORE

Oct. 24, 2014

Flu season will bring a virus that spreads far faster than Ebola, and will kill thousands of people; Ebola, unlike the flu, does not lead to the kinds of coughs and sneezes that create a cloud of aerosols around a patient; scientists who track the spread of Ebola have found that close contact with an infected person is necessary to become infected. MORE

Oct. 24, 2014

Britain pledges to sharply increase its funding to fight Ebola and pushes its fellow European countries to contribute more; virus has killed nearly 5,000 Africans and is still spreading rapidly. MORE

Oct. 23, 2014

Nicholas Kristof Op-Ed column holds in order to protect America from Ebola, focus must be on stopping the outbreak at its source rather than giving in to hysteria; holds virus has to be wiped out in West Africa, not just in Texas. MORE

Oct. 22, 2014

Editorial welcomes news that Nigeria and Senegal have been found to be free of Ebola, and 43 people in Texas linked to Liberian victim Thomas Eric Duncan have been cleared without falling ill; contends danger of outbreak affecting American public is very, very slight, and experience in Nigeria and Senegal shows that diligent responses can work. MORE

Oct. 20, 2014

Helene Cooper Reporter's Notebook column describes experience returning to her native country of Liberia in order to report on the Ebola epidemic; holds that Liberians are facing outbreak with a stoicism and resilience that emerged during 14 years of horrific civil war. MORE

Oct. 18, 2014

Pres Obama continues to insist that dangers to American public over possible Ebola exposure are overstated in news media, but White House officials say he is seething over how government has handled key elements of response; he reportedly places much of blame on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for shifting and wrong information and for inadequate training on proper protective procedures for doctors and nurses. MORE

Oct. 18, 2014

Only a handful of medical centers nationwide are specially equipped and their staff members trained to handle tide of infectious waste generated by Ebola virus; patients suffer from diarrhea, vomiting and hemorrhaging, making cleaning process itself so hazardous that it requires special training. MORE

Oct. 17, 2014

Editorial contends Ebola cases in United States show US hospitals and public health officials have much to learn about protecting health care workers and public from possible infection; maintains mistakes by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are alarming; cautions against barring entry to people from Ebola-stricken countries, saying flight ban only makes it more likely disease would spread past porous African borders. MORE

Oct. 17, 2014

Only about 15 ambulance teams are available to aid Monrovia, Liberia, city of nearly 1.5 million people, where hundreds of new Ebola cases are reported each week, with many more never accounted for; to confront spread of virus, some community groups have stepped in, motivated by altruism, desperation and, in some cases, political opportunism. MORE

Oct. 16, 2014

News that second nurse Amber Joy Vinson is infected with Ebola virus in Dallas and that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared her to fly raises questions about officials' ability to control disease; Vinson was on medical team that cared for Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan after he was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital; Vinson alerted CDC that she had a slight fever before boarding commercial flight in Cleveland. MORE

Oct. 16, 2014

Scrutiny of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital intensifies as officials seek to calm workers and patients after second nurse Amber Joy Vinson is confirmed to have Ebola virus; there has been no comprehensive investigation to date of the hospital's missteps, but Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Texas Dept of State Health Services are evaluating the hospital's performance. MORE

Oct. 16, 2014

Infection control experts say many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued stricter guidelines; photos and chart highlight changes from CDC and illustrate difficulties involved in removing protective gear safely. MORE

Oct. 15, 2014

World Health Organization warns new cases of Ebola virus could reach 10,000 a week in West Africa by December, nearly 10 times the current rate; reports none of the three most heavily affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, are adequately prepared for epidemic; comments come in report before the United Nations Security Council, which voices fear that epidemic could renew the risk of political instability in a region barely recovering from civil war. MORE

Oct. 14, 2014

Experts rule out notion that Ebola virus has become a super-pathogen and raise doubts that it will evolve into one; say virus is not fundamentally different from those in previous outbreaks dating back to 1976, and it is highly unlikely that natural selection will give it ability to spread more easily, particularly by becoming airborne. MORE

Oct. 14, 2014

Editorial warns effort to combat the Ebola virus in Western Africa is lagging dangerously behind; contends the international community must dramatically step up aid if epidemic is to be controlled; holds obligation is particularly strong for the United Sates as it faces first case of patient who contracted the virus domestically. MORE

Oct. 14, 2014

World Bank president Dr Jim Yong Kim, frustrated with slow global response to Ebola outbreak, has made fighting epidemic his mission, driving bank to act on Ebola with uncharacteristic speed; bank has committed $400 million to fighting disease. MORE

Oct. 13, 2014

Op-Ed article by Prof Siddhartha Mukherjee contends Ebola case of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas shows that medical community must rethink concept of quarantine, in light of the absence of any established anti-viral treatment; calls for development of pilot program for rapid-testing quarantine. MORE

Oct. 12, 2014

Enhanced Ebola screenings begin at Kennedy Airport in New York as fear grow that virus could spread around globe; Kennedy is first of five American airports to introduce Ebola screening protocols and new measures are latest indication of risk that the disease presents. MORE

Oct. 11, 2014

Doctors Without Borders, first to respond to Ebola crisis in West Africa, remains primary international medical aid group battling disease there; strained and overworked charity has erected six treatment centers in West Africa, with plans for more, and has treated the majority of patients, just as they have in previous Ebola outbreaks and some other epidemics in the developing world. MORE

Oct. 10, 2014

Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit in Omaha, with arrival of two Ebola patients in last six weeks, is at forefront of the nation’s response to the disease; unit's 10 beds sat empty for years. MORE

Oct. 9, 2014

Thomas Eric Duncan dies of Ebola in Dallas, renewing questions about whether delay in receiving treatment could have played a role in his death and what part it played in the possibility of his spreading the disease to others; it remains unclear why, and how, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital did not initially view the Liberian man as a potential Ebola case; nearly 50 people who came into contact with Duncan when he was experiencing active symptoms are being monitored. MORE

Oct. 9, 2014

Federal health officials will require temperature checks for the first time at five major American airports for people arriving from three West African countries hardest hit by Ebola epidemic; however, health experts say measures are more likely to calm worried public than to prevent people with Ebola from entering country; move comes after death of Thomas Eric Duncan, Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. MORE

Oct. 9, 2014

European leaders are scrambling to upgrade their response to Ebola crisis after Pres Obama's announcement that he will send 3,000 troops to West Africa to build hospitals and otherwise help in fight against the disease. MORE

Oct. 9, 2014

Editorial notes new screening procedures directed at travelers entering United States from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, center of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa; holds screenings, while burdensome and possibly of little practical value, may ease public anxieties about keeping virus out of country and assure people that risks are being minimized. MORE